


backtrack

by anemuea



Series: when i can understand your pain, i think you feel less of it [2]
Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Author Is Sleep Deprived, Author simultaneously regrets nothing and everything, Blood and Injury, Eating Disorders, Help, I LOVE WILBUR SOOT SO MUCH!!, I Wrote This While Listening to Mother Mother, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Mentioned Jschlatt (Video Blogging RPF), Mentioned Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), Panic Attacks, SHIPPERS DNI!!!, TOMMY IS ALIVE TOMMY IS ALIVE PLEASE LET ME HAVE THIS, Toby Smith | Tubbo Needs a Hug, Tommy is alive, Torture, and i thought to myself "do i feel bad", and then i realised i sort of don't, hhhhh, i was watching tubbo's stream while writing this, i wrote this while listening to wilbur soot, i wrote this while watching tubbo's lore stream, i'm back bb, it's the same au as it was last time, no beta we die like (canon) c!tommy, only implied tho, this is the backstory!! you love to see it, wilbur is alive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-18 09:53:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29856312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anemuea/pseuds/anemuea
Summary: aand i've reappeared with some backstory!! :Di am typing this while on a discord vc with the first irl friend of mine to read my fics. thank you for saying it was good, it gave me a lot of confidence <3i have a lot planned out for this AU! i love to ignore canon. don't you love the dream smp where everybody is alive and well and good?!? me too!! (/s) anyway, this work is only a three-shot, but i'm writing a lot of connected oneshots that are set after both snippets and sobs + backtrack.enjoy :)
Series: when i can understand your pain, i think you feel less of it [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2195064
Comments: 16
Kudos: 29





	1. blood-red waltz

**Author's Note:**

> trigger warnings for panic attacks, torture, blood, and referenced self-harm. please let me know if there's anything else i should add a warning for!
> 
> shippers DNI.
> 
> panic attacks based off my own experiences! please do not invalidate in comments.

wilbur carefully shuts tubbo’s spruce wood bedroom door behind him with a book and a quill in hand, sitting down next to his brother on the bed. the boy is sat up in the foetal position, forehead pressed to his knees.

wilbur glances briefly at the small video camera that sam has built. it sits on tubbo’s bookshelf with a cord leading outside the room for remote control. red light flashing every second. one, and, flash, two, and, flash, three, and, flash, a perfect, twisted, blood-red waltz illuminating the room. he wants the light gone. he knows he’ll have to wait.

wilbur places a careful hand on tubbo’s shoulder, and the teen flinches, pushing his head between his knees. the elder takes his hand off. “hey, tubs, it’s- it’s me. it’s wilbur. do you… remember yesterday we talked about you telling me what happened with… with dream? are you okay with doing that still?”

“o- okay,” tubbo says, head slowly making a reappearance. wilbur sees him looking warily at the camera, and hastily says, “do you remember i said we might… record it, just for the sentence? is that still okay?”

“yes.”

“okay. so, um- before we, uh, start- you need to… sign this. do you want me to read it for you?”

“sure.”

“alright. um, it’s- so, uh. ‘i-’ and then you sign there- ‘promise to tell the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. i acknowledge that anything i say may be used against me in an SMP court of law.’ is that… can you sign that for me?”

wilbur holds the book and quill out to his younger brother, who slowly reaches out to take it with shaking, bandaged hands. ink drips down and blotches the page with literal absence as tubbo writes his name in the blank. he hands it back to wilbur, who glances at it before closing it and placing it on the nightstand next to the bed.

“thank you, tubs. so- can you start from the beginning? what happened after you went to bed that night?”

tubbo takes a deep breath, and opens his mouth.

* * *

_tubbo yawns, stretching his arms way above his head. tommy snorts, glancing toward the brunette. “go to sleep, big man. big day tomorrow.”_

_“wait- sorry, what’s tomorrow? did i miss something in the calendar? i thought wilbur’s birthday was september fourteenth!” tubbo exclaims in alarm, and tommy bursts out laughing. “why’d you instantly jump to w- look, okay. yeah. alright. sure.”_

_“so what’s tomorrow?”_

_“nothing. just- i mean, if you think about it, all days are pretty fucking big. that’s twenty-four hours. big day.”_

_tubbo blinks. “i mean- yeah, sure, i guess?”_

_“okay, so go to sleep now. i’ll see you tomorrow, tubs. love you.”_

_“love you too, toms. see you.”_

_tubbo gets up from the couch and walks into his room. as always, his bed is there waiting for him, and he practically falls onto it. he thinks he’ll fall asleep immediately. he’s wrong._

“i just- couldn’t get to sleep. it wouldn’t work. i tried counting backwards from a hundred in threes, i tried closing my eyes and doing that breathing exercise thing you do with tommy when he has panic attacks- you know, the one where you breathe in through your nose for four seconds, and you hold it for four seconds, and then you breathe out through your mouth for four seconds? that one. i just could not, for the life of me, get to sleep.”

wilbur nods. “go on?”

_tubbo lays there for hours. he eventually gets bored and checks his communicator: it’s two in the morning. he gets up, he picks up his photo album and stares at the pages for nearly half an hour. at twenty-six past two, he places the photo album on his nightstand and lays back down._

_just as he’s drifting off, something smashes through his window. he sits up in a frenzy, eyes darting around frantically, and sees nothing but a coal-black smiling face on a round white mask. it’s somebody that’s meant to be in prison._

_dream._

_the man punches tubbo in the face, and his nose immediately feels broken. he’s not sure if it is, but there’s definitely something wrong with it. warm blood drips down next to his philtrum and onto his upper lip. he attempts to hit back._

“and i tried to- i- i tried to fight back, but he, uh, h- he-”

“hey, hey, take a few deep breaths for me, tubbo,” wilbur says gently, watching to make sure tubbo doesn’t start to hyperventilate. “you’re okay, yeah?” he places a hand on the younger’s arm. “take a deep breath, bubs.”

“he pulled me onto the floor by the back of my t-shirt and, uh, said that if i made a noise he’d kill me. so i- i didn’t make a noise. and he, uh, he-” tubbo pauses to swallow quickly, the end of his gulp blurring with his next word, making it sound forced and choked- “brought me outside. he pulled me through the window, and i remember my shirt g-got caught on the broken glass. and he got really mad.”

 _tubbo cries out in pain as dream drags him by his right leg along the ground. the lime-clad man stops briefly, kicking the younger’s chest. “i said-” he grunts through clenched teeth that nobody ever sees- “don’t-” he kicks at tubbo’s stomach- “make-” he pushes right down, making the boy’s mouth open in terrified agony- “any-” he pulls his leg back to hit tubbo in the left thigh- “fucking-” he kicks tubbo’s left leg and it makes a sickening_ crunch _\- “noise.”_

 _dream pauses for a moment, and tubbo hears the_ whoosh _of his curtains closing. he then continues to pull tubbo along. the boy has tears of pure pain running down his cheeks, and he sobs silently as his dark brown hair collects leaves and dirt._

“and then i, um, i passed out. i don’t know what happened between then and when i woke up. i- i mean, obviously he took me to his base thing, but i don’t- i don’t know what- y’know?”

wilbur nods, hesitating for a moment before saying, “look, tubbo, i- if you want to stop for now, we can do this later. there’s no rush, yeah?”

tubbo shakes his head. “no, i’d rather get it over with now.”

_tubbo wakes up in a small room made of what looks to be mossy stone bricks. the room is small as in not small enough to upset tommy, but small enough to make niki click her tongue in disapproval and pronounce it too small. small as in five by five blocks, at most. the next thing he notices about this room is that there are several bloodstains on the floor, and the next thing is a wither skull. then the multiple stone pressure plates on the floor, then the buttons next to them. tubbo doesn’t know what they do. he doesn’t want to find out._

_the room doesn’t have an entrance, nor an exit._

_it’s overly cold. freezing, even. tubbo sits up and shivers, pulling his now-torn shirt closer around his body- and that’s when it finally clicks that he’s not home._

“i was sitting on a bed with… with white sheets, i think?” tubbo says, scrunching his face up in an effort to remember. “it was really hard. like, the sheets did absolutely nothing for it. uh, i- i remember it felt like the wither skull was watching me. all the time.”

 _tubbo doesn’t know where he is. all he knows is that his leg is probably broken, his nose is probably in the same predicament, and the skull observes silently. it judges him. tubbo imagines eyes in its empty, sunken sockets, and nearly cries right then and there because he’s thinking of tommy’s eyes and god it_ hurts _. everything hurts._

“so, uh, then i sat there for a while longer. i don’t really know how long. probably, like, an hour. and then, um- g-george, like, mined through the wall. he bandaged my leg, and put, uh, what do you call it? gauze? he put gauze on my nose. and, um, then he s-said something really weird.”

“what did he say?” wilbur asks curiously, watching tubbo’s facial expressions carefully.

“i… he said, ‘this is for the best.’”

_george walks out of the room, placing the bricks back, and tubbo stares after him in dismay. for the best? what does that mean?_

“i passed out. and, i- i hope you know i can’t really provide the timeline of all this. i don’t- i never got a clock, or anything.”

_the next time tubbo wakes up, it’s to find dream standing over him, pickle-green eyes piercing and cold. “you’re not to sleep again, you hear me?”_

_tubbo nods, and complies, forcing his eyes open for the longest time. he doesn’t know what will happen if he doesn’t, and he doesn’t want to know. maybe he drifts off for a few minutes, occasionally. he doesn’t know. the sun rises and falls, every morning, and every night. he knows it does, because it must. it has to. other than that little slice of knowledge, tubbo has literally no way of telling the time. he stays up counting the seconds, counting the seconds, counting the minutes, counting the hours, on his fingers. this does nothing, since he didn’t know what time it was to begin with. it helps him stay awake._

_tubbo’s not sure why he needs to stay awake, really. he doesn’t know why he’s here. he doesn’t know when, or even_ if _anybody will come for him. he just has to hope._

_george mines through the wall around once every three days to provide him with a small amount of water in a ridiculously miniscule cup. he occasionally spills it and says that it’s an accident, and that he “didn’t mean to. so sorry!” but his laugh is such a mix of faux-apology and genuine humour that tubbo is pretty sure the spill is deliberate. every week, tubbo gets a meal. bread. it reminds him of niki’s. he eats it slowly, so slowly, makes it last three days even though it’s only one measly, stingy slice._

_on the fifteenth day of tubbo being awake, a day after his second meal, he passes out against the wall._

“and, uh- dream didn’t like that, and he- he- wilbur, i- can’t br-breathe, w-wilb-bur-”

wilbur pulls tubbo in close, rubbing his back and making small shushing sounds until he feels his brother’s breathing begin to even out. “maybe we should stop for now, bubs, yeah? get some rest?”

“no, i- i’m fine,” tubbo replied shakily, tears streaming down his flushed cheeks.

“you’re not fine,” wilbur insists, gently pushing tubbo down on the bed. “sleep, bubs. it’ll be okay, i’ll wake you up tomorrow and you can tell me more, yeah?”

“i… okay,” tubbo sighs, defeated. his body relaxes, and so wilbur takes his hands off. “do you want me to stay?”

“y-yes, please.”

so wilbur lies down beside tubbo on the very edge of the bed, and they lay there in complete and utter silence until tubbo falls asleep.

* * *

wilbur walks in the next day, red-light waltz blinking just the same as before. he ended up leaving tubbo’s room in the middle of the night, leaving a note, just in case. _t_ _he edge of your bed is not comfortable in the slightest_ , the note reads. _i went to my room, you know where it is. :)_ , the note reads.

tubbo is still asleep. wilbur half-expected this, and doesn’t want to wake him up, but still, they need the statement. they need the recordings. (for what? wilbur doesn’t understand.)

he picks the note up, shakes tubbo slightly, and places a warm hand on the boy’s shoulder as he stirs slightly. “tubbo?” he says softly, and tubbo sits up.

“hi, wilbur,” he replies, rubbing his sleep-ridden eyes. “are we- oh, we’re doing the recording thing now. okay.”

“yep,” wilbur nods, and then realises tubbo hasn’t actually eaten anything today. “shit, um, do you want to eat something, then do this? i didn’t really think this through. sorry.”

“no, it’s okay. i’ll… i’ll eat later, probably. definitely,” he adds on hastily, as wilbur furrows his brow. “okay.”

“do you want me to, uh, go from where i left off?” tubbo asks, yawning.

“okay,” wilbur says again.

_dream finds tubbo asleep on the aforementioned fifteenth day, and kicks his stomach in order to awaken him. awaken tubbo does, coughing and wheezing due to the sudden impact._

_“don’t fall asleep again, or i swear to god, i’ll fucking kill you. that will get at tommy, won’t it? huh? won’t it?”_

_tubbo knows it_ will _get at tommy. (probably.) so he does his best to stay awake. back to counting on his fingers. one. two. three. four. five. six. seven. eight. nine. ten. tubbo has ten fingers. he hopes it will stay this way._

“i just… i didn’t want tommy to get hurt, i guess. he doesn’t deserve any more of that. he never did.”

_george comes in with tubbo’s bread six days later. (not that tubbo’s counting anymore. his movements have become slow and lethargic, and his eyes will no longer work properly. his mind is a blur of tommy’s face and… and he doesn’t know the other face. a man with wavy brown hair, glasses, a red beanie. names keep running from his brain to the tip of the tongue, and then as soon as they get there, it’s like they just evaporate.)_

_george says tubbo’s allowed to sleep for one hour per week on the hardwood bed that sits in the corner of his… room. george says tuesday is the next time tubbo’s allowed to sleep. tubbo doesn’t know when tuesday is, and he breaks down in frustrated, despairing sobs. george looks concerned for a second, and seems to hesitate briefly before he walks out of the room and replaces those goddamn stone bricks._

_he walks back in five minutes later. “sleep now, i’ll make sure he doesn’t come in. and- and i’ll let you know when you’re allowed to sleep.”_

_tubbo sleeps._

“i’m not sure how long i slept for. can’t have been long, i don’t think. i had a- a really bad nightmare, it… it was about schlatt, i think i remember. well, not so much a nightmare, as a… a memory, i guess? anyway, i- it wasn’t important, really.”

_george comes and tells him when it’s tuesday, and he comes in to wake him up, so tubbo knows he’s slept for an hour. he still feels groggy and light-headed, but it’s something._

_dream comes in a while later with a serrated knife in his hand and a shit-eating grin on his face. tubbo isn’t awake enough to actually register when dream makes small incisions in the side of tubbo’s arm, doesn’t fully feel how much it hurts._

“and then i did.”

_tubbo screams in pain, and dream scoffs. “screaming already? you’re weak, tubbo. this is nothing.”_

_he cuts harder, deeper, and tubbo lets his head drop down onto his chest, not screaming anymore, silent sobs wracking his body in violent waves._

_an hour later, dream leaves, and george comes in and says tubbo is allowed to sleep._

“i think dream decided he wanted me to be more awake for his… torture sessions, i guess. so he let me sleep an hour a night,” tubbo says quietly.

wilbur hates this.

_weeks pass. months pass. tubbo is beaten, kicked, repeatedly broken, snapped in half, and he doesn’t think he can do anything about it. tubbo watches the hole in the wall every second he’s awake, even when dream is hurting him, just to see if anybody’s come to save him yet. the torture doesn't really bother him anymore, it’s just a part of his life now._

“with the torture, i sort of… like, this is going to sound bad, but…” tubbo trails off, looking down. wilbur nods. “go on, bubs. it's okay.”

"i… so, i used to cut myself, i guess. when s-schlatt was alive. and, i- i just kept thinking back to then, whenever he- whenever dream hurt me. and it wasn’t as bad, because it was like i was doing it to myself,” tubbo eventually says, and wilbur’s eyes widen in concern. “tubbo-”

“sorry, sorry, it doesn’t m-”

“no, tubbo, it does matter. you know it does,” wilbur says sternly, taking his brother's hands in his own. “this isn’t what the statement is about, but we’re going to talk about this later, okay?”

“okay.”

_sometime just after the five-month anniversary (not that he knows) of tubbo’s… kidnapping, if you will- george doesn’t replace the bottom wall block. tubbo knows he means to, because his hand swings as if to place something down. however, he fumbles, and doesn’t seem to realise. tubbo forces his eyes properly open, sitting up fully for the first time in a while._

_tubbo bets he can fit through that one-block space._

“i got up, and i- i didn’t think about it, i didn’t think about where i would go, i just- i crawled through the hole, and there was this… this big white room, with just a lot of weapons, and shit. there was a door, and also a ladder on another wall, and i could see light filtering in. i remember thinking, ‘this has got to be a trap, right? there’s no way they would make it this easy.’ but i- but i dragged myself up the ladder, and then i was outside.”

_tubbo blinks at the bright sunlight- the first he’s seen in months- and looks around. he’s in a plains biome, and there’s a savanna off to his right. that means mountains, which means caves, which means somewhere to hide. his entire body hurts like hell, and he just wants to go to sleep, but he knows he can’t. he begins to walk, not thinking about the tail of crimson blood he's left on the ground behind him._

_it begins to rain. tubbo’s hair sticks to his head, and his tatty clothes cling to his bloody, bruised, skinny, shivering body._

_everything hurts._

_after what feels like an eternity, tubbo makes it to a small cave. he sits down on a rock, fatigue catching up to him. his eyes droop closed._

_his communicator beeps. once. twice. three times. more times. he doesn’t know how many times. he nearly forgot about this thing, he's been out of range for so long- and yet here it is, a thousand notifications coming through at once._

_tommy._

_tubbo’s fingers are shaking badly, and his breaths are rattly and wheezing, but he tries to type out a text to his brother. he’s sure he makes a lot of typos, so he says this. he says he’s sorry. he says he can’t breathe well. tommy replies, frantic, rushed, and tubbo can’t do it anymore._

_he tells tommy approximately where he is, he tells him he’s sorry, he tells him that he loves him._

_his eyelids fall closed again._

_he only means to sleep for a few minutes._

“and then you f- then you came, right? it can’t have been long after, because george and d-dream would have found me if it had been more than, like, twelve hours. i think.”

“yeah, it was about five hours after you texted.”

tubbo fixes his gaze on his hands, fiddling with the bandages. “how’d you find me so fast?”

“guesswork,” wilbur replies simply. “we thought, savanna biome, plains biome, and figured you’d be one of six places. you were in the second place we looked.”

tubbo nods, sighing quietly. wilbur sighs as well, standing up. “okay, well, thank you, tubbo. if you want to talk to tommy, i’ll send him in with some food in about ten minutes. stay in bed, please, you’re not well enough to get up at the moment.”

wilbur opens the door, and the red blinking waltz finally comes to an end.


	2. there

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warnings for panic attacks, referenced self-harm, referenced derealisation, referenced delusions, suicidal ideation, and emesis. please let me know if there's anything else i should add a warning for!
> 
> i literally was trying to sleep last night and thought, "what's popping, i'm gonna write a THIRD chapter, and it's gonna be wilbur-centric!! fuck yeah." so i don't know when that will be finished, but it will be finished.
> 
> shippers DNI, thank you!

wilbur is there.

wilbur is always there.

wilbur is there when he and the search party wander into a dark, damp cave to find his younger brother, freezing, bleeding, starving, crying, _dying_. he carries the brown-haired boy back to their campsite, wrapped up in blankets upon blankets to try and keep him warm through the thunderstorm outside.

wilbur is there when fundy treats some of tubbo’s injuries. he holds tommy’s hand, reassuring him, or at least he hopes. he’s not sure tubbo will pull through. he pretends he is. everyone knows it’s a façade. they pretend they don’t.

wilbur is there when tubbo wakes up for the first time since he’s been rescued. he holds the teen tightly as he sobs, body shaking and trembling. the boy begs for wilbur not to hurt him, he begs for tommy to be there. niki gets tommy. tubbo still isn’t okay. but that’s okay.

wilbur is there when tubbo can’t keep anything he eats down, retching and heaving every time he ingests something other than water. he rubs the younger’s back as he throws up.

wilbur is there when tubbo can’t stop coughing and wheezing. he asks fundy, who says it’s probably hypothermia.

wilbur is there when tubbo’s heart stops beating and his chest stops rising and falling. he screams and calls for fundy, for jack, for sam, for punz, for anybody to help. niki brings him into another room to calm him down as their little medical team does whatever it is they do to keep tubbo alive. wilbur still has dreams about that day.

wilbur is there when tubbo’s fever finally breaks. he sighs in relief and refrains from hugging the unconscious boy.

wilbur is there when tubbo gets out of bed for the first time in around a month. he smiles and laughs with his brother, expressing his pride.

wilbur is there when tubbo goes outside in the daytime for the first time since he was captured. he watches the boy’s delight at simple things such as bees and flowers, trees and houses.

wilbur is there when tubbo actually keeps a meal down for the first time in who knows how long. he cheers. so do tommy and niki.

wilbur is there when tommy decides he wants to go and find dream. he tells his brother to be careful, to take someone with him, because he knows he can’t stop him. tommy takes fundy. wilbur is there when tubbo wakes up crying and asking for tommy. he smiles sadly and says “he’ll be back soon, tubs.”

wilbur is there when tubbo has his first nightmare since tommy’s departure, and he yells at him. he _yells_ at him. _he yells at him_. but he’s there, and he holds tubbo, and he tells him that everything’s okay, and he’s there the next day when his brother can’t get out of bed because, as he tells him, it _hurts so much_ , and he _can’t breathe properly_ , and he _wants to die_ , and he _wishes dream had just killed him_. that one’s concerning. wilbur makes a mental note to say something to puffy.

wilbur is there when sam and puffy suggest dream gets the death penalty and tubbo overhears. well, overhears wilbur shouting about it. sapnap is there to calm tubbo down, thank prime, but wilbur still feels incredibly bad. he can’t do anything right, he’ll never be able to do anything right, why can’t he just be good at something? niki gets back the same day. she’s injured. wilbur fixes her up.

wilbur is there when tommy sends him a chat message, tubbo finds out, and won’t listen when they all try to tell him that tommy’s safe. tubbo tries to jump off the cliff that his and tommy’s bench is on. wilbur is stuck in time, doesn’t know what to do, and watches silently as niki talks tubbo down. wilbur carries him home.

wilbur is there when ranboo finds tubbo bleeding out in the bathroom in the middle of the night. wilbur screams, tells ranboo to call somebody, _anybody_ , shakes tubbo relentlessly, willing him to wake up, wake up, just _wake up_! he sobs, he trembles, he can’t breathe, he sits there and doesn’t even notice when tubbo is lifted out of the room on a stretcher by sapnap and bad. ranboo holds wilbur’s hand, tells him tubbo is going to hospital, and slowly, eventually, wilbur registers this. they walk all the way there, even though it’s the middle of the night, even though mobs are coming at them left and right, even though wilbur still feels like the world is falling apart before his eyes. tubbo wakes up over twelve hours later. puffy asks him a few questions, and deduces that he was experiencing derealisation. wilbur feels awful, because he knows how shitty derealisation is.

wilbur is there when tommy gets back a month later, dream having been taken to sam’s house and arrested (again). he watches from the doorway as tommy calms tubbo down after the former president wakes up from a nightmare. he watches from the doorway as tubbo vomits a small amount of food, plus some bile, all over his bed. he watches from the doorway as tubbo sobs, tommy holding his small, shaking frame.

wilbur is there.


	3. okay

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warnings for blood, suicidal thoughts, thoughts of overdosing, implied eating disorders, referenced self-harm, and panic attacks (does that last one go without saying yet? /j). please let me know if there's anything else i should add a warning for!
> 
> shippers DNI.

wilbur is sitting at his office desk, back slouched and eyes heavy as he attempts to sharpen his sword. the netherite weapon has grown dull and blunt over the past five months, and he hasn’t had a chance to fix it up until now. he’s always out with the search party looking for tubbo, which isn’t the most uplifting job. the party usually consists of: eret, fundy, niki (but only sometimes), quackity, and sam. wilbur honestly thinks sam only tags along because he feels bad about dream escaping from prison. he sometimes catches him alone at night in wilbur’s office, staring at the framed photos on the wall of techno, wilbur, tubbo, and tommy as younger kids. there’s one specific picture that wilbur notices sam looking at. tommy and tubbo would have been five and six, respectively, so techno would have been fourteen, and wilbur would have been thirteen.

so that’s about a year before wilbur’s mental state goes to shit, and about four before the l’manburg war.

in the photo, an ornery and bored-looking techno holds onto tommy, who’s struggling to break free, and wilbur is grinning as tubbo attempts to eat his hand. wilbur remembers that moment. he remembers the photo being taken. he remembers phil bribing tommy with copious amounts of chocolate to stay still, just for a minute, so that he could get a good photo. one did end up being taken, but so did this one, and they’d decided it was better.

wilbur doesn’t know how he feels about techno and phil. he knows the two are still in contact, or even living together, but he hasn’t spoken to them in ages. he’s well aware that ghostbur had a positive relationship with phil, but- but wilbur isn’t ghostbur, and phil didn’t literally murder ghostbur. he murdered wilbur. but wilbur _asked_ him to… does that make it his fault? he doesn’t know. he doesn’t know if it’s okay not to like phil.

wilbur isn’t as concerned about techno. he misses him. that’s all.

the tip of wilbur’s sword slips off the wood block, and he sighs, picking it up carefully and placing it back on the block. he raises his metal file, scraping it along the blade with a sickening grinding noise. wilbur has grown used to that sound. maybe he likes it.

he opens his drawer and takes out a whetstone and a small bottle of honing oil. pouring the oil onto the whetstone, he picks the sword up and pulls it along the stone. once. twice. three times. four times. he reaches into the drawer for some sandpaper and a cloth, blending the edges and wiping it down.

he’s meant to test the blade on some paper, but sometimes he doesn’t want to. sometimes he just wants to test it on… himself, probably. he knows he shouldn’t, he knows if he did and anybody found out he’d be fussed over by niki and dragged off to see puffy, who’s apparently experienced in mental health issues. but it’s not wilbur’s mental health that’s the problem. he’s fine. he just wants to hurt himself.

oh.

maybe his mental state is declining. maybe it has been all this time. maybe it’s never been good. he wouldn’t be surprised.

he bends down and picks a stack of blank paper up off the floor beside his desk, taking one off the pile and slicing through it with his sword. good. nice and sharp.

wilbur sighs, shoving his drawer closed and letting his head fall back to face the ceiling. this building is still fairly new, only having been constructed about a month before tubbo’s disappearance. the place doesn’t have an official name, but quackity refers to it as ‘the penis of the president’, despite there being no presidential system, and it’s stuck. (wilbur is of the opinion that they should just call it the office building- but what would wilbur know? nobody listens to wilbur.)

the building contains wilbur’s office (obviously) niki’s office, which is adjacent, a small kitchen, a bathroom, and two bedrooms that they use for unwanted guests- ahem, _tommy_ \- and overnight jobs. it’s only about a ten minute walk from the clearing where most people’s houses are, but at night there are mobs, and nobody feels like fighting for a place to sleep. not again.

wilbur closes his eyes briefly. he can feel a headache coming on, and he reaches for his box of tablets next to his pencil case. he opens the box, popping one of the pills and placing it on the tip of his tongue, not bothering with a glass of water, feeling the gel coating dissolve, and tasting the sour, bitter powder as it explodes inside his mouth. he scrapes the top of his tongue with his maxillary central incisors, pushing the congealed powder to the back of his mouth and swallowing. wilbur clears his throat, coughing as the substance doesn’t quite make it down his oesophagus. he swallows again.

there are nine tablets left in the box, and wilbur wonders what would happen if he took all of them.

he panics at the thought, throwing them across the room like they’ll burn his hands if he doesn’t, and they hit the wall and then fall to the ground with a clatter.

why did he have that thought?

wilbur hasn’t had proper suicidal thoughts since… since phil killed him.

that’s something.

wilbur collects himself, closing his eyes briefly and taking a deep breath, four seconds in, four seconds hold, four seconds out. it’s what he’s always done. he’s about to stand up and put his tablets somewhere he’ll forget about them, but before he can, a frenzied tommy bursts through the door, holding onto his communicator with what looks like an iron grip and pointing at it frantically, gasping and panting. wilbur is about to ask what’s wrong, about to take a look at the communicator, but then he remembers he’s an asshole, and points towards the door. “ _knock_ , tommy.”

tommy immediately reaches forwards and punches wilbur’s shoulder roughly. “knock fucking knock,” he says sarcastically, and then jabs at his communicator’s artichoke-green screen again. “look! look what tubbo just fucking sent m-”

“wait, _tubbo_?” wilbur says in disbelief, blinking. “what happened? is he okay?” tommy rolls his eyes. “do you _think_ he’s okay?!” wilbur notices tommy is masking his emotions with sarcasm- exactly what he’s always done- and makes a mental note to talk to him when he can.

“okay, uh- give me that,” wilbur says after a few seconds, snatching the communicator from tommy’s hands. he half-expects his brother to grab it back and say, “ _ask_ , wilby,” but this isn’t a normal situation and tommy takes this seriously which is weird because tommy doesn’t take much seriously and wilbur is freaking out so he stops thinking and reads the chat messages displayed on-screen.

 **tubbo** : _hi tomy I was captured. dream. Im hurt badd cant walkcsnt breathe very welsso hungry so tired thirsfy typign is hsrd coordidnates donr know i dont thinj im going to mske it i miss you im sorru_

 **tommyinnit** : _Tubbo?! holy shit what happened? can you figur out ur coordinates for me big man?? What’s going on_

 **tubbo** : _nno cordinated sory I cantt mfigure ot out ut jn a cave i cntcant in a cave near a body f water ithinj im near a plains and aslo an savnana biom. pelase helpsend help i csnt do it i cant brethr_

 **tommyinnit** : _alright, how many blocks away do you think you are bubs?? Breathe ,in for four, hold for four, out for four, yea? youre ok_

 **tommyinnit** : _how bad are your phsyical injuries tubbo? can you give fhe pain a 1 to 10 for me_

 **tommyinnit** : _tubbo?_

 **tommyinnit** : _tubbo are yiu there_

 **tubbo** : _in not going t make ot out alivr tommy imsory_

 **tommyinnit** : _Of course you are. you dickhead dont say shit like that_

 **tubbo** : _i loce you_

 **tubbo** : _pls tell thr others i love them to. tell ranboo tell eilbur tell niki Tell tehno i understsnd ehy ge executd me niw_

 **tommyinnit** : _what thenfuck does that mean tubbo_

 **tommyinnit** : _You're not dying big man, I'm NOT letting you. i'm getting wilbur_

 **tubbo** : _i_ _loved u the most tommy_

wilbur looks back up at tommy, whose eyes are filled with tears. he swears under his breath and grabs his sword, handing the communicator back to tommy. “okay, i’m getting a search party together and we’re going to find him. plains and savanna, that could be a few places that i know of.” wilbur bends down to rummage through a chest, pulling out nine golden apples and shoving them into one of his inventory slots. no healing potions in the chest. that’s a problem. he should keep healing potions in his chest. another mistake. wilbur just wants to do something right.

“and it won’t be any of them. dream has a little base type thing about six hours away from here in between a plains and a savanna that he’s told me about before, and i bet you- i bet you a hundred diamonds he’s there,” tommy says fiercely, and wilbur ignores him, walking past him and through the doorway, and the little voice in the back of his head screams at him to say something, so he does. “tommy,” wilbur begins, but tommy makes a noise of protest, grabbing him by the shoulder. “wilby, i _know_ dream. please.”

“i know dream too, tommy. i’m getting the party together. you stay here with the others, okay?”

wilbur isn’t letting tommy come. too dangerous. he’s not risking his youngest brother’s very life for this. there’s no way. he’s already nearly lost tubbo, he can’t lose tommy.

as he walks down the hallway, tommy follows behind. “i don’t want to stay here, will! you can’t make me stay here-”

“yes, i can,” wilbur says sternly. he hears tommy huff angrily. “you can’t. you’re not my dad.”

“i’m your brother, tommy! i can tell you to do whatever the hell i want. we don’t fucking _have_ a father anymore, you hear me?” wilbur half-shouts, turning around finally, and tommy flinches back. wilbur realises his mistake, and sighs. “sorry. sorry, i just- i’m sorry, but you can’t come.”

he runs. he runs away, away, he leaves tommy standing in the hallway calling after him, he runs into the community building to find eret, niki, quackity, and sam sitting around the fireplace. they all look up at wilbur, and he says in a rushed tone, “good, you’re- you’re all… well, mostly… fundy. where’s… where’s fundy? is he here?”

“he’s pissing,” quackity replies, deadpan, at the same time that eret says, “he’s doing furry shit.”

wilbur groans. “okay, where actually is he? because tommy’s just gotten a chat message from tubbo and he’s in one of six places as we speak, and we’re going out, and i need fundy to be there so if tubbo’s badly injured we can fix him up.”

“i’m here!” says fundy, popping out from behind a couch. “shit, so- we- you… what?”

“we don’t have time,” wilbur says. “get up, get your stuff, get healing pots if you have any, get food, get blankets, and we’re leaving. we don’t know if tubbo’s safe from dream at the moment. this situation is super dire and super unclear, so i need you guys to be super serious. okay?”

they all nod and mutter various things in response, and then they stand up, and then niki is walking towards him and placing a hand on his shoulder, and he’s backing away, and she’s still advancing on him, and everybody’s eyes are boring into his skull, and it’s hard to breathe, and it’s hard to think, and niki looks concerned, and he blinks and lets her hug him. “wilbur?” she asks uncertainly once she pulls away. wilbur swallows. “yeah. no. yeah, i’m- it- it’s fine. i’m fine. we have to get going.”

and they do, and niki walks beside him, and it’s raining, and it’s not a good day to go out, and they don’t know where they’re going, and tommy runs after them. “i’m not staying behind!” he shouts, and quackity says in an uncharacteristically gentle tone, “tommy, maybe it’s… better… if you stay behind. yeah?”

“no, no,” tommy says urgently. “i’m not, you can’t make me, he’s my _best friend_ , will-”

“which is _exactly_ why i don’t want you to come, toms!” wilbur finally answers him, turning around to face his brother. “if he- if something goes terribly wrong, and he dies, i don’t want you to see that- okay? you _can’t_ see that.”

tommy looks furious, but wilbur is doing the right thing. he’s protecting tommy. this is for the best. right? yeah. this is… this is for the best.

“wilbur,” tries tommy, approaching him with his hands clasped together, and wilbur knows he’s really serious now, because tommy never calls him wilbur. “wilbur, i- wilbur, i haven’t seen him in _five months_ , and the last thing i said to him verbally was ‘love you’, and that’s not okay if he- if he _dies_!” tommy pauses to take a breath, and they’re wasting time here, and tommy continues, “if we find him, and he’s- and we can’t save him, i need to be there. i need to actually tell him i love him, i- i don’t want you to come back and tell me he’s…” tommy trails off, a sob escaping his mouth. “i need to hear his voice again, wilbur. _please_.”

and wilbur _gets_ it. he really does. and maybe tommy’s right. and wilbur breaks, and he lets tommy come with them, and tommy looks thankful, and wilbur doesn’t care, but he cares so _much_ , and he ignores niki when she tries to talk to him, and the search party continues on their journey.at the first place they try, they find nothing but a small book and quill lying on a rock, indicative of past human presence, at which quackity exclaims in delight and says, “hey! eret, that’s yours from a few months ago, right?” eret nods thoughtfully, wilbur glares, and quackity looks down at his shoes and mumbles, “sorry.” tommy pesters eret, tells them he knows where tubbo could be, asks them to tell wilbur he knows, because wilbur won’t listen, because wilbur is prideful and stupid and doesn’t want to accept that tommy could be right in this situation.

on the way to the second location, eret approaches wilbur and places a tentative, calloused hand on his shoulder. “tommy… tommy thinks he knows where tubbo could be, and he asked me to tell you,” they say, and wilbur shoves their hand off his shoulder and keeps walking. he doesn't want to talk. he’s stressed and he’s tired and he might want to die and he wants to go home and he wants tubbo back and he wants tommy to be safe and he wants things to be different and he couldn't fall asleep if he tried to and he doesn’t know what he wants. and eret clears their throat, striding forward to walk beside him. “will- will, i think it’d be a good idea to listen to tommy, i-”

“and what if tommy’s wrong?” wilbur snaps, turning around to face eret. “what then, huh? what if we do what tommy says, and then we’re too late to save tubbo, and this whole thing is for _nothing_? is that what you want?”

and wilbur- wilbur regrets that. he feels bad for shouting. and he knows something’s wrong with him. he knows he’s not okay. but it’s not an excuse, and he won’t let anybody think that he’s making it into one, so he pushes the thoughts that scream at him to _say something! tell them!_ to the back of his mind. he’s not okay. he’s okay. he’s- he doesn’t know.

wilbur apologises to eret half-heartedly, and they assure him it’s okay, but he doesn’t back down. he won’t back down. maybe wilbur’s always been stubborn. wilbur’s _definitely_ always been stubborn.

wilbur backs down.

he claps his hands loudly to grab the attention of everybody, and eret glances at him in surprise. wilbur says they’ll go where tommy says to go. wilbur veers sideways to walk next to tommy as their party starts to head in another direction, talk of a temporary campsite audible among them, and begrudgingly offers a hand. tommy takes it, squeezing it tightly, and looks up at wilbur. “i- thanks, wilbur. i’m sorry, i- i just want him back.”

wilbur wants him back as well. wilbur understands. “it’s okay,” he says. it’s okay. it is. he understands. it’s okay.

* * *

they end up putting together a makeshift campsite: a small fire, two tents, that’s it. they won’t need to stay there for long anyway, half a day at most. wilbur is sure they won’t even find tubbo at this location. he’s sure. he’s absolutely sure. if tubbo is there, wilbur will… eat his hat. that’s what he’ll do.

* * *

if wilbur had a hat, he would have to eat it, because when they get to the biome coordinates that tommy repeats, over and over, until fundy’s got it memorised, there’s a small cave about an hour’s walk from the campsite, with bloodstains outside it on the ground. niki retches, and sam winces, and quackity swears in spanish, and fundy bites his lip, and eret groans, and tommy buries his face in wilbur’s shirt, and everybody seems to have a reaction but wilbur, probably because wilbur is so desensitised to blood that he's not shocked by anything anymore. but still, wilbur holds tommy tightly, kisses the top of his head, ruffles his dirty blond hair, pushes him off, and walks inside by himself.

tubbo lies there on his back in a pile of blood on the ground, eyes glassy, body slit and scarred, one arm and one leg both twisted at horrific angles. he’s soaking and pale, a small stream of blood trickling out of his nose. there's a large bloodstain soaking through his shirt, right near his abdomen.

wilbur drops to his knees with a gasp. maybe some things _can_ still shock him. this isn’t okay. he feels tubbo's uninjured wrist for a pulse, because his chest is barely rising and falling, and he can feel an extremely weak beat, thank prime.

wilbur looks up shakily, swallows, and calls out, “uh, guys? he’s- he’s in here, he’s- injured, badly. i need b-”

tommy bursts in, panicked, and bends down to examine tubbo. “holy fuck. oh shit. oh no. oh my god. holy f-”

“stop,” wilbur says, slapping his brother’s hand lightly. “calm down. you can’t help people if you’re panicking.” (wilbur’s a hypocrite, but it doesn’t matter.) he turns his head towards the cave entrance. “i need blankets, guys, if anybody brought them like i asked! quick, he’s freezing.”

niki walks in with about four handmade-looking brown patchwork quilts, and draws in a sharp breath through her teeth. “fuck. he’s- he’s alive, right?"

“yes! of course, i wouldn’t be this calm if he were _dead_ , for fuck’s sake,” wilbur says, and sam pokes his head in. “if you need healing pots, i’ve got a few?”

“thanks,” wilbur replies, carefully lifting up tubbo’s top half and placing one of the blankets under him, wrapping him up and pulling him to his chest, “but i don't think that’s a good idea considering his injuries, they’re pretty severe, and he… i just don’t want to worsen his condition.”

tubbo stirs, opening his eyes slightly and mumbling incoherently. “w… no, no- dre-” he breaks into a coughing fit, and wilbur rubs his back. tommy places a hand on tubbo's cheek, plays with his hair. “shh, tubs. it’s okay, you’re okay,” he says quietly. wilbur can see him shaking despite his calm tone, and silently admires how damn good he is at pretending. maybe he's not admiring, actually, so much as he’s observing in slight concern.

tubbo closes his eyes, and wilbur wraps him in another blanket. the boy is shivering, teeth chattering, lips discoloured and freezing when wilbur accidentally brushes his hand against them. he stands up, lifting tubbo with him, cradling him against his chest.

wilbur walks outside, closely followed by sam, niki, and tommy, and it’s not _right_ how thin and light tubbo is. fourteen-year-old wilbur would have _killed_ to have arms that skinny. “campsite. quickly. fundy, go ahead and get your medical shit ready, please. it’s… not good.”

fundy takes one look at tubbo’s sickly form, and seems to decide he’ll take quackity and do just that.

* * *

the walk back to the campsite takes longer than it’s meant to, because tubbo wakes up sobbing as soon as wilbur starts walking slightly faster. maybe it’s too rough. maybe tubbo’s too physically fragile. wilbur doesn’t know what to do. they can’t stop walking. it’s raining. he whispers soft reassurances into tubbo’s ear and walks slowly, and tommy walks beside them, and niki and sam and eret walk behind them, and wilbur is exhausted, and tommy looks like he’s about to burst into tears, and then he does, and then wilbur does, and then they’re all crying, and tubbo says he can’t breathe, so wilbur runs, faster, faster, _faster_ , and tubbo gasps and sobs and shakes and begs for the pain to stop and wilbur also wants the pain to stop but it never has and it never will. not for him, not for anyone else.

wilbur would give anything to make tubbo stop hurting.

they eventually reach the campsite, and quackity is, of course, already there waiting by the extinguished fire. he points a shaky hand to one of the tents, a yellow light flickering inside of it. “fundy is in there with the first aid stuff, i think. i- i wasn’t sure what to do.”

wilbur nods at him, enters the tent, sets tubbo, who’s still sobbing and shaking, down on the floor of it. as promised, fundy is already in there. he pulls out a few bandages and a bottle of antiseptic fluid, the same sort that wilbur uses to clean his cuts on bad days.

fundy pulls tubbo’s shirt up, wincing at the wound on his stomach. he takes a few cotton buds out of his bag, tips the bottle onto one of them, and begins to dab it onto tubbo’s cuts. the boy’s face screws up in pain, and his bloody arms fly up. wilbur immediately pushes them back down and murmurs, “hey, hey, calm down. it’s wilbur and fundy, okay? you’re alright, tubs. it’s alright.”

tubbo continues to squirm, whining, gasping out pleas. hot tears run down his cheeks, and he cries out, “s-stop, stop, i- i can’t br- can’t- stop, _ple-ease_ -”

wilbur hushes him, stroking his hair. “it’s okay, tubbo, shh, it’s alright. breathe for me, yeah? you’re okay. shh. tommy’s outside, do you want me to call him?”

tubbo nods desperately, face red and teary, sobs escaping his mouth and wracking his body every two seconds, and fundy clicks his tongue. “dad, can you just keep him still, please? i can’t stitch this up if he keeps-”

“yes,” wilbur says, ignoring fundy’s usage of the word _dad_. it’s not important right now, but he’ll think about when he gets the chance, which, let’s be honest, will be sometime next week. “yes, we can calm him down, i’ll just get tommy, okay?”

tommy must have been listening in, because he bursts in through the flap of the tent. “is he- do you need me to, to do something? what do i do?”

“i don’t know,” wilbur says in frustration, not anger, just frustration. “just- i need you to calm him down so fundy can- can- i don’t know, okay?”

tommy glances around nervously, and places a cautious hand on tubbo’s head, twisting a bloody, matted lock of his chocolate-brown hair gently. “hey, tubbo. hey. it’s me, tommy. i’m here. it’s good to see you again- heh. hey, we’re going to get you home soon, yeah? shh,” he says gently, and tubbo only cries harder, breathes faster, pushes his head against the younger’s hand in an agony-induced panic.

and apparently fundy is sick of this, because he drops the cotton, places a firm hand over tubbo's mouth. he watches silently as the boy hyperventilates for a few seconds, and then goes limp.

“what the fuck was that?!” wilbur splutters in bewilderment. tommy’s breath hitches, and wilbur instantly places an arm around him. fundy shakes his head, not looking up. he picks up the cotton again and continues dabbing it onto tubbo’s wounds. “that’s how you’re meant to knock someone out without anaesthesia or causing brain damage. don’t worry.”

and wilbur worries, and tommy cries (but tommy _never_ cries!), and wilbur holds his hand. “it’s okay,” he says. it’s not okay.

fundy suggests they go outside while he works. tommy doesn’t want to, but wilbur drags him out anyway. “we’ll talk to niki, okay? we’ll be okay.”

so they sit down on the ground, and they talk to niki and eret. sam and quackity sit nearby on damp, mossy logs by what used to be the fire, having their own quiet conversation.

“will he be okay?” tommy asks quietly, and wilbur places a cold, clammy hand on his shoulder. “y-yes,” he says quietly. then, louder, “ _yes_. yes, of _course_ he will. it- it’s tubbo. he'll be okay.”

he’ll be okay.

wilbur hopes he’ll be okay.

there’s an awful, awkward, empty silence, at which wilbur wants to scream and curse. just to fill it. he keeps his mouth shut.

tommy breaks it after a painful, excruciating couple of minutes, with something so- so _him_ \- that wilbur barely even minds when tommy says, “oi. wilbur, you owe me a hundred diamonds. heh.”

wilbur still minds a little bit, though, and swats at his brother’s head lightly. “please stop,” he says flatly.

eret frowns, twisting their hands together. “wilbur, how long do you think we’ll stay for?”

wilbur isn’t sure. wilbur’s tired. _so_ tired. the words that are meant to come out of his mouth are, “about a day, i should think,” because he has to keep up appearances, he has to make sure they think he’s got it together, he has to actually have it together.

but he’s tired, he’s _so_ tired, he hasn’t slept in over a week, he doesn’t have it together, he’s so, _so_ tired, and the words that actually come out of his mouth are, “i’m not okay.”

niki looks at him in concern, and tommy blinks, and eret bites their bottom lip. wilbur immediately backtracks, frantic, probably incoherent mumbles escaping his mouth.

wilbur isn’t okay, and now that he's actually said it out loud, he’s even less okay.

he takes a shuddering breath. “sorry. sorry, i- i don’t- i didn’t mean to say, i just-”

“wilbur,” niki says sternly, reaching out to touch his arm. “wilbur, you know it’s okay to reach out for help, right?”

wilbur nods.

he doesn’t know, actually.

wilbur doesn’t listen as niki explains, again, that it’s okay for him not to be okay. that he doesn’t have to be strong all the time. he blinks slowly, and maybe he falls asleep, because wilbur knows nothing until the next morning when he wakes up in the other tent, squashed up against tommy and niki, who are either side of him.

wilbur is so tired.

* * *

fundy calls wilbur and tommy into tubbo's tent about three hours after wilbur wakes up. “i’ll be honest, guys. it’s not great, and i don’t know if we’ll be able to transport him home safely in time.”

“sorry, what do you mean by ‘in time’, fundy?” wilbur asks suspiciously, and tommy scowls. “yeah, bitch! furry bitch! furry bitch boy! what do you mean, i can’t tell what you mean, furry.”

fundy gives tommy a withering, exasperated glare, and then says to wilbur, “it’s not safe to jostle him around at the moment. his hypothermia could potentially be life-threatening. passive rewarming most likely isn’t enough in this situation. once we get to the hospital back home, we can try blood rewarming, but it’s a while away, and he’s… look, he’s also lost a lot of blood. i don’t know if he’ll survive if we take the time to walk slowly, but if we move him around too roughly it could cause heart failure, and i’m just not sure what the best course of action is here.”

wilbur looks at tubbo, wrapped up in niki’s brown blankets, blood on his forehead, one eye black and bruised. so small. so thin. so… undeserving. he didn’t deserve to be hurt. he still doesn’t deserve to be hurt. wilbur doesn’t know why dream took tubbo instead of tommy, it doesn’t make _sense_ \- but nothing dream does ever makes sense, now that wilbur thinks about it.

tommy takes a deep breath, and says monotonously, “so basically, what you’re saying here is that tubbo’s going to die?”

“what,” fundy says, more of a statement than a question, and he and tommy begin to bicker. wilbur tunes their voices out, instead putting his head in his hands. he’ll think of a solution to this if it kills him.

it probably will.

he’s okay with that.

* * *

wilbur’s _really_ not okay. he doesn’t know how to be okay.

he should probably say something more to niki about his rapidly deteriorating mental state, but he doesn't want to. what’s the point? no, seriously- what’s the point? he’ll talk, he’ll feel better for a short amount of time, he’ll get hooked on his meds, he’ll get angry and empty, he’ll get better, he’ll think he can just have _one_ drink, he’ll get absolutely wasted and shout at somebody, and then the cycle will just start all over again. in wilbur’s opinion, it’s not worth it.

wilbur can’t breathe, and it’s not because of the quality of the air, and it’s not that he’s hyperventilating, it’s just… suffocating. it’s really fucking suffocating, sitting on the ground with your younger brother- whom you swore to protect just under seventeen years ago when he was born- curled up next to you sobbing, while your other brother is carried away on a bareback horse in your best friend’s arms.

that’s what wilbur’s doing right now.

sitting on the ground with tommy- whom wilbur swore to protect just under seventeen years ago when he was born- curled up next to him sobbing, while tubbo is carried away on a bareback horse in niki’s arms.

* * *

“are you going to hurt me?”

wilbur blinks. “sorry, what?”

it’s been about two days since they got home. tubbo has only just begun to sit up properly in bed. this is his second time waking up.

“i said,” tubbo repeats, pausing to cough into his elbow and wincing as he does so, “are you- are you going to hurt me?”

and that’s worrying, because- because, sure, tubbo asked this same question yesterday, but yesterday tubbo was delirious and sobbing and practically incoherent. today, tubbo’s speech is pretty much entirely comprehensible, and his forehead feels a little less warm when wilbur places his hand on it. so tubbo is… tubbo is asking this while lucid.

… yeah, that’s worrying.

“of course not, tubs,” wilbur says after a moment, his voice gentle and cautious. “i- i’m not sure exactly what happened to you while you… while…” he trails off when tubbo’s grip on the glass he’s holding visibly tightens. wilbur clears his throat. “careful, don’t spill that. uh, i- we will _never_ hurt you, okay? never. you don’t have to worry.”

“okay,” tubbo says quietly, and wilbur can tell it’s not actually okay, because that’s the exact same tone he hears in his own voice when he lies.

he decides not to push it.

even if it’s not okay, even it won’t be okay for a while- it’s okay.

it’s okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hihi!! last chapter again, sorry this one took about a week to write. i'm not sure i exactly like how this one turned out- i definitely enjoyed writing it, though, and the first part is genuinely cool imo!
> 
> thank you so much for reading! again, i have about three other oneshots piled up that i'd like to finish the collection of before posting, but they will be posted eventually.
> 
> comments and kudos are greatly appreciated! leave concrit if you'd like  
> <3


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